Downtown Tries Damage Control

With G. Fox Closing, Team Studies How To Stop Spread Of Failures

Downtown Tries Damage Control

The vast G. Fox department store on Main Street, which flourished for years as Hartford's retail mecca, will do just $13 million in business this year, down from $33 million in 1988.

"From my point of view, the largest problem is erosion of customers," said store chairman John Dunham, speaking to the first meeting of a task force of local officials convened to ponder the future of the mammoth, 11-story building.

Basically, the store is starving for business most of the day, and draws a steady stream of customers from just 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

"You can't run a store that size for 10 hours a week," Dunham told the task force.

The recent news that the store will close in January shocked the community. The task force, made up of city, state and business leaders, is struggling to decide how to ensure that the loss of G. Fox will not seal the fate of other nearby businesses.

The downtown shopping district is still faltering from the 1990 closing of the Sage-Allen department store next door.

Both Sage-Allen and G. Fox have continued to open stores in suburban locations, such as the 1.2 million square-foot Pavilions at Buckland Hills mall in Manchester, which opened in 1990.

"Our interest is to assure the people of this town, `No, we are not going under,' " said Deputy Mayor Henrietta Milward.

"We know what the problems are. People are thinking another building will be demolished if we can't save it."

If G. Fox, which thrived for decades on traditions of customer service and loyalty, can no longer survive downtown, leaders are searching for a lesson in the apparent early excitement caused by a new "value-oriented" arrival on the scene -- T.J. Maxx.

"It's drawing a diversity of shoppers I haven't seen," said William M. Russell, president of Aetna Realty Investors Inc.

The store, which recently opened in the Civic Center, features discount clothing, and has attracted lunch-hour professionals and a